Utah Jazz Outmatched in Embarrassing Fashion in Oakland

The Utah Jazz lost to Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors in embarrassing fashion on Tuesday, falling 104-74 in Oakland.

Growing up, the old adage, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” was oft-recited to me. In general, I’d say it’s pretty sound advice. However, as relates to the Utah Jazz and their 104-74 loss to Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday, it leaves us with little to discuss.

Through the game’s first several minutes, neither team could by a bucket. The Jazz and Warriors were a combined 2-of-25 from the floor during that stretch. At the end of the period, the Warriors held a 19-15 advantage. Somehow, the game only managed to get worse from there (for Utah anyway).

Over the next two quarters, the Jazz were outscored 63-39. When it was all said and done, they had lost by 30 points after shooting just 35 percent from the field, 55 percent from the line and committing 23 turnovers.

It was a particularly rough affair for Gordon Hayward (2-of-10, six points), Trey Lyles (2-of-10) and Rodney Hood (0-of-5), who left the game after just 11 minutes of play with the infamous gastric distress. Meanwhile, Dante Exum narrowly avoided a historically bad box score.

Before a couple of late threes, he was on pace to become just the 53rd player since 1983 to put up a 0/0/0 line in 20-plus minutes of play.

After the game, it was a predictably grim scene in the Jazz locker room —

Having said all of that, let’s follow that old advice and try to say something nice. Because, despite Tuesday’s result, there were some good things that happened. If only a handful.

First and foremost, Rudy Gobert continues to be in beast mode. In 31 minutes of play against Golden State, he scored 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting, grabbed 16 rebounds and blocked two shots. He also showed us a guard-like ability to run a fast break —

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Over the last seven games, Gobert is averaging 17 points per game on 86 percent shooting and 72 percent from the charity stripe. For the record, that’s 2.02 points per shot attempt; let that sink in.

He’s also posting a defensive rating of 98.1 over that stretch. Can we say All-Star?

In addition to Gobert’s performance, Joe Johnson put in 22 minutes of strong play off the bench. He finished with 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting and hit two out of three from behind the arc. It was the kind of line you’d like to see more often out of Iso Joe.

The lopsided nature of the game also allowed some players at the back of the bench to get some run, which is great. Raul Neto played 13 good minutes, scoring six points, while Joel Bolomboy was the only player to finish on the right side of the plus/minus ledger at plus-six in four minutes of action.

The more time they can get on the floor, the better.

At any rate, the Warriors game is done and it’s on to the Sacramento Kings for the Jazz. It will be a tough one on the wrong end of a back-to-back, but it’s a good opportunity for the team to put this anomalous performance behind them.

As bad as the Warriors loss was, one game does not a season make and the Jazz are still riding high at 18-11.

Tip-off between the Jazz and the Kings from Vivint Smart Home Arena is at 7 PM MDT on Wednesday night.